


Elementary

by elfin



Series: Elementary [1]
Category: Sapphire and Steel
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-31 01:53:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8558608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfin/pseuds/elfin
Summary: "I think I might be in love with them."





	

Silver:

I think I might be in love with them.

We had sex once, after a particular successful assignment, a job well done. We were curious and it was interesting. It was messy too - all that sticky, gooey stuff, all those membranes. I think Steel was a little bit disgusted. 

We’re used to an intimacy a thousand times that of the physical. When two or more of our kind want to have intercourse, we go deeper into one another than any human body is physically or mentally capable of. 

I was with Sapphire first, so many moons ago, while Steel remained on the periphery. They’re rarely apart now, not completely, but his distant presence wasn’t a concern. She’s beautiful, our Sapphire. She’s lovely in the flesh, when she takes human form, but in her pure form, she’s mesmerising. That first time didn’t really mean anything; it was fun, alleviating the nothingness between assignments. 

Sometime after that the two of them were caught up in a time loop and I was sent to break it, to rescue them. I never did find out what transpired between them during the thousands of loops they endured, with no perceivable end to it, but something changed and Sapphire stayed away afterwards. I missed her, but I didn’t stand a chance if Steel had made his move. I didn’t think he was the kind to share, so I found entertainment and companionship elsewhere. With Jet for a time. Shocking, shimmering Jet.

Then I found myself arm-deep in a right old mess where the future and past had effectively become entangled. In a cafe. In Devon, England, Earth, where time was constantly switching; clothes, money, food, the tea, the decor, even the air. People were aware, understandably disturbed and, going a little mad, a madness that close to erupting into violence. And just before the situation became untenable, Steel was there. He just appeared. The first thing I knew about it was utter stillness and silence as the world stopped turning, time stopped moving, held in an unshakable grip, and a voice in my head asked,

_Better?_

It was the first time he spoke to me in that way, and it awoke something in me that at the time I was too busy, too distracted to recognise. So I replied,

_Much better. Thank you._

Infinitely better actually. It allowed me to work without interruption, with space to think and calculate and find all the places time had broken. Most importantly, to fix the mess.

Throughout, Steel didn’t speak. He was a strong, steady presence but seemed to need no attention. When I was done, Steel released time and all the threads re-established themselves. We watched from a distance, checked all was well, before going our separate ways with nothing but a brief smile. Only later did it strike me that all he’d said to me was that one word. Better?

He didn’t say much more the next time we worked together, although it was the three of us - myself, Steel and Sapphire. I expected some sort of tension, an atmosphere, but there was nothing untoward: friendship from Sapphire, cool professionalism from Steel. An odd situation, visitors from the future tearing holes in the fabric of reality with their communications systems. Testing, I told whoever would listen, was so important before launching probes back through time. 

We worked together more and more after that. Sapphire teased me in her own, affectionate way. Steel pretended to barely tolerate me, yet there was a warmth to his presence, his company, that belied his outward aloof manner. 

We wear our suits like armour, like the gentlemen of Earth. But we’re not gentlemen. We're not of Earth. And as if to prove the point, Steel got himself shot. A time break at an anniversary party, a fifty year jump back to 1930, and as time struggled to reassert itself, the past actively started to remove those who weren’t supposed to be there.

We can’t be killed, not be any conventional human method. We can feel pain, we can be hurt, but if the flesh we inhabit is damaged we just heal it, fix it. Or rather, specialists fix us. I’m a specialist. When Steel was shot, I was sent to fix him. I found myself in a dining room, lots of white cloth and polished silver. I felt right at home. Sapphire was there, at Steel’s side. There were others too, dinner guests, seated at the table. They were frozen; like pressing pause on a VCR, Sapphire had stopped time altogether. It was something that was frowned upon, but if she hadn’t done so, I suppose my sudden arrival and Steel coming back from the dead might have been hard to explain.

As it was, he was sitting bolt upright, a bullet hole in the centre of his forehead. There was an almost comical look of surprise on his face.

The expression on Sapphire’s face was anything but. 

‘Don’t worry,’ I assured her, ‘I’ll have him back in no time. Quite literally, actually.’

Rubbing my hands together to activate the magnetism in my left palm, I placed that hand on his forehead, directly over the bloody hole, and with my right I cradled the back of his head. That wasn’t strictly necessary. I did it because I wanted to. 

It didn’t take long. The bullet was drawn out of Steel’s brain into my left hand, the damage reversing itself in its path, easily done once the object was removed. I watched while the hole in his skull mended, aware that I was stroking the silky hairs at the back of his neck with my fingers and doing nothing to stop myself. Lastly, the visible injury closed. He blinked his eyes and glanced up at me. There was something in his expression I couldn’t read, couldn’t even begin to fathom.

I opened my hand, dropped the bullet to the plate in front of him and, wetting my thumb on my tongue, I wiped the spots of blood from his forehead.

‘There,’ I told them, forcing a smile. ‘All better.’ Before either of them could say anything, I left.

Later, I asked Sapphire why she just didn’t take time back that evening, and she told me it was because something had happened, in the moment before the shot, that she’d been worried about taking from Steel during the rewind. For a long, long time, I didn’t have any idea what that something had been.

Some indeterminate time after that, I was working with Gold, who is a absolute basket case incidentally. We were fixing a minor incident at a private school, where a couple of students had been playing with old movies and had unwittingly caused a crack in time. I recall a moment, just a moment, a familiar touch to my mind, then a sudden, paralysing fear that wasn’t mine. It passed so quickly I thought maybe I’d imagined it. But I hadn’t. I recognised Sapphire, I recognised Steel. It was just a while before I could check up on them, and by then they were back amongst the planets, awaiting their next assignment. The danger contained at least for the time being. It was the one and only time they’d reached for me when I wasn’t with them. I treasured that moment. Silly really. Given what happened next.

Because then came the service station. 

I’ve never been so scared in all my existence. From the moment I realised our lives were in danger, I tried everything to get them out of there. And when the old man told me I’d be spared if I helped trap Sapphire and Steel…. I’ve never been so angry. 

I realised they were gone at the same moment I realised they were all gone. I was alone. I ranted and raved, screamed and even cried. And when I was done, such a long time later, I found myself sitting outside a cafe in 1924, back against the locked door, a Closed sign just above my head. I tried to find them, Sapphire and Steel, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t feel them for the first time… ever. But I could feel the others, and hope broke through my misery. I called to Brass, and Copper, and Jet, and that lunatic Gold. And together we hatched a plan. We kept it to ourselves. We arranged meetings ahead of time, only in crowded cities, and spoke only in verbal words. 

It took us time to find them, I don’t know how much. A day might have passed on Earth, a year, ten years, a century. I didn’t notice. They were all I could think of, how long it must have felt for them. If I needed something to keep me going, knowing they were still alive and suffering, that was it.

Eventually, we found them; our combined focus finally locked on to one singularity deep in space. At the moment of execution, we joined together and struck, launched ourselves as one out into the depths of the universe, at a window to a room that didn’t exist; a prison, the only prison, that was capable of holding them. 

The glass cracked, splintered, smashed and flew apart. And the two elements I love most in the world were clinging to me. I to them. All I could say was,

_I’ve got you._

What I heard in response was, 

_We love you._

 

A thousand emotions we shouldn’t have felt took us to that room, a room, a night. It was on Earth, Italy I think, the early twentieth century. It was a large room, a luxurious hotel room, lots of rich colours and dark wood, a large four poster bed. It didn’t really matter. We were naked by the time we lay down, Steel with his back to me, Sapphire facing us both. I watched them kiss, the fingers of Steel’s left hand trapped between mine, resting on Sapphire’s back. This body - my body - was aroused, my erection pressing into Steel’s bottom. The last time we’d had sex, Sapphire was between us. We'd both made love to her and with the exception of a couple of kisses and accidental touches, we each more or less avoided the other. This time, Steel pressed back against me until we were touching from head to toe, and when Sapphire eased herself onto him, sliding him inside her, he sent,

_Stop being such a gentleman, Silver._

It took me a moment to realise what he meant, but his next communication wasn’t so subtle, and I understood exactly what he wanted. These bodies are just vessels, we were using them to be physical with one another, but the intimacy was all in our heads, in the very essences of ourselves. I penetrated his body, but it was in our minds where the real joining took place.

We looped every sensation, every feeling, back around to one another, so I felt Sapphire’s orgasm as my own, Steel’s climax as Sapphire’s, my own like a lightening bolt which struck all three of us at once. I’ve no idea how long we lay together after. The last time, the first time, Steel had moved away from us almost immediately. This time, he didn’t want to move. When I tired to separate from him, he held on to me, twisted his legs with mine, and although we don’t sleep, we just rested there together, bodies and minds entangled.

We had to move eventually. We have to keep moving now. Brass and Jet were on the case, trying to find out which higher authority had ordered Sapphire and Steel’s destruction. Until we knew who, and why, we had to be careful. Sapphire rose first, kissing Steel’s shoulder before going into the washroom to bathe.

Steel turned over to face me, looked at me curiously for a moment, then tipped his head and kissed me. His tongue swept over mine and I sucked on it greedily, making some sort of pathetic sound when he pulled back which prompted a smile and another, deeper, longer kiss. I could feel his hand, ever so gentle on my hip, his erection pushing into mine, It didn’t take long, didn’t take much, I’d never before felt the kind of soaring, overwelming things I felt for him and his beautiful partner. I couldn’t believe I’d got them back. Letting them go again, that was going to be the difficult part. But at least I could think of them with having to imagine their desperation, their fear.

_You don’t have to leave us. I want you to stay._

Physical climax is nothing compared to someone you love and desire speaking directly to your soul. At that moment, and from that moment on, I would do anything he asked. I would die for him, for both of them. 

 

When they're not working, Sapphire likes to walk on beaches, and to fly in the minds of migrating birds. She says she finds the simplicity of their shared goal relaxing. Steel likes to lie on the edge of high rises and construction cranes and stare at the sky. I found him once on the ledge of a partially completely sky scraper in Dubai, 128 stories up, lying on his back with his arms under his head. He's too heavy to fall. Even if I'd been inclined to push him off, I wouldn't have had the strength. 

I sat on the roof with my back against the low wall, hands clasped at my knees, head back using his ribcage as a cushion. For a while we sat in silence. Then I felt fingers in my hair before his arm came across my shoulder, his palm settling against my chest.

‘We never thanked you,’ he murmured, ‘I never thanked you, not properly.’

‘That night in the hotel was thanks enough.’

‘That wasn’t to say thanks. That was… something else.’

I lay my hand along the back of his. ‘We have to be careful now. Something out there wants rid of us. They won’t stop until they’ve succeeded.’ Steel didn’t react to that, not then. ‘Did you think I was part of the plot against you?’

‘When Sapphire said that the fear she’d felt outside was our fear, when the violence was against us. But when you came into the back room and told us we had to leave, I’d never seen you so frightened, so rattled. You were genuinely scared, for yourself as well as for us. I knew then you weren’t a part of it. I knew you were under threat just as we were.’

‘Not quite.’

It was a couple of minutes before he asked me, 

‘Are you all right?’

I knew what he was referring to. I've said Gold was a lunatic. I just didn’t know how much of one he really was. 

‘The past is a far away place,’ I misquoted, and I felt him chuckle. 

‘Whereas the future….’

‘Is closer than you’d think.’


End file.
